The Future Of America's Roads: Smart Streets, Cars That Communicate

Population growth paired with a lack of "appetite for investment" in transportation systems means big challenges for Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. His solution? Creativity, cars that talk to each other, and a data innovation challenge.

When Anthony Foxx was sworn in as the U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary last summer, he said he would draw on "every ounce of innovation and creativity" to make the country's vast transportation system not only safe and efficient but also modernized.

Anthony Foxx

Earlier this year, Foxx, one of our 2014 Most Creative People in Business, launched the Data Innovation Challenge, the DOT's most ambitious invitation to the tech community. He gave enterprising companies and developers access to the department's data—more 2,500 data sets on everything from highway conditions and financing to railroad accidents—and challenged them to "revolutionize America's transportation system" by creating new visualization tools and apps for consumers as well as officials. The winners will be announced later this year.

When we met at DOT headquarters, Foxx shared how he thinks about innovating at an organization as large (55,000 employees and a 2015 budget of $90.9 billion requested by President Obama) and complex as the DOT.

How do you prioritize where to focus your—and the department's—creativity?

I get asked the question, "When your tenure as secretary is over, what do you want people to say?"

Already? You've been in the job less than a year.

Yeah, people ask as soon as you get here: "What is it you want to get to get done?" If I had one word, it would be innovate. Take the system that has done so much good for this country for so long and bring it into the 21st century in a bold way. Our automotive systems. Our aviation systems. Our mariner systems. Our rail and transit systems. Our truck and motor coach systems. I want the folks who use these to understand that we are embracing the technology to make them safer and move more efficiently. I also think it'll be a major economic driver going forward.

How so? Because of the benefits of efficiency or a new expertise?

The more we get to that place faster than the next country, the more we're going to be able to grow the kind of jobs this country needs in the 21st century. When the airplane was invented, we built the system that the rest of the world now imitates. We regulated the air space and the systems that are required. We’re in a period now of such rapid change in all these modes of transportation that part of our job is to get there first. We are in a position to deploy the innovation and show the rest of the world how we do it. But also if we are more efficient at moving people and goods, that gives us a leg up in global competitiveness.

How did the data challenge come about?

You have to understand the largest challenges that an agency like the USDOT faces. They're around how we plan to incorporate massive population growth in our transportation systems when the appetite for investment has been challenged.

You're facing the same issues as a lot of companies: doing more with less.

Not every innovation in transportation is going to come from government or even a large enterprise. There are smart people out there with tools and skills to come up with great ideas. A lot of people in the technology space love the idea of a solving a problem. And who in America doesn't think we could have a better way to move around and better ways to reduce congestion, or at least think ahead as you travel? These could improve quality of life.

The DOT hasn’t shared its data like this before. How do you suddenly make the department more open?

It is a challenge, culturally. As innovative as this department is, and can be, the thought of putting a bunch of data out there is foreign. But that's exactly where the world is going. The president himself is very focused on putting out more of the public's own data. And we've seen what other agencies have done, finding ways to get their data out and allowing the market to dictate what kind of innovations could occur. Local transit agencies have developed apps to let you know when the next bus is coming, but there are so many more applications that can be done.

Where do you expect these new apps and tools will have the greatest impact?

We don't know. Part of being innovative in government is sometimes not trying to plot out the last chapter of the book, but to be open and see what comes back.

In February, the DOT's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced its support of car-to-car communication. Why focus there?

Some of the foundational elements of an intelligence transportation system are in place today. Some stoplights have a tracker underground that acknowledges the presence of a car to make the light turn green faster. Eventually, the road system will communicate with cars in many more robust ways, helping you avoid a collision, or if you're driving late at night, helping you avoid going outside your lane. And then vehicle-to-vehicle technologies will help prevent cars from hitting cars, or potentially, cars from hitting pedestrians.

How do you help the technology along?

Part of our job is to try to enable these emerging technologies to take root. We have a responsibility as an agency, by law, to set forward the parameters for safety in automobiles. What industry has been waiting on is for our agency to offer a kind of a road map. Once we put the enabling rule-making in place—we're going to work hard on this over the next three to four years—it will not take long before you start to see vehicles talking to each other in lots of ways.

In part 2 of the interview, Foxx explains his role in allowing smartphones, tablets, and e-readers during airplane takeoffs and landings—and what he's got planned next to improve air travel.

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It is only a matter of time before the stock market plunges by 50% or more, according to several reputable experts.

“We have no right to be surprised by a severe and imminent stock market crash,” explains Mark Spitznagel, a hedge fund manager who is notorious for his hugely profitable billion-dollar bet on the 2008 crisis. “In fact, we must absolutely expect it."

Faber doesn’t hesitate to put the blame squarely on President Obama’s big government policies and the Federal Reserve’s risky low-rate policies, which, he says, “penalize the income earners, the savers who save, your parents — why should your parents be forced to speculate in stocks and in real estate and everything under the sun?”

your ignorant don't you know 99% of scientists agree on climate change, that means that they agree that WE are the #1 cause of the climate, don't you know. Don't believe me? look at parts of the greenland ice sheet, they're melting(ignore the rest of the ice caps) and it has nothing to do with the fact that it's on an active volcano, don't take into account Phanerzoic climate change over the last 500 million years which clearly shows that we're on a tragectory for massive cooling and another ice age, instead ignore that and milankovitch cycles, instead focus on C02. CO2 is the worst, it's evil, that's why we need to tax rich countries and give that tax money to poor "developing" countries so they can have a high quality of life(develop), it's not global wealth redistribution/communism it's just carbon taxes and it's progressive. Don't look at the 65 million year trend which also shows that we're going be experiencing reglaciation(another ice age) just pretend that the polar bears out

The U.S. currency had the biggest weekly decline against the euro in two months as the Fed announced June 18 it will reduce monthly bond-buying while holding its interest-rate target at virtually zero. The Canadian dollar rallied to a five-month high after reports showed inflation and retail sales exceeded projections. The pound rose for a third week as traders had the most bullish futures wagers since 2007. A gauge of currencies volatility increased from a record low.

The International Monetary Fund is considering creating a new way for indebted countries to get large loans and dropping a exception to its lending rules that enabled Greece to obtain a loan in 2010 without having to first restructure its debt.

The exemption was established at the start of the European debt crisis to prevent contagion by allowing some nations to receive financing even though the fund could not say with “high probability” that their debt was sustainable. In a report released today, IMF staff proposed that a country’s creditors instead be asked for a “a relatively short extension of maturities” in exchange for IMF support.

“It has become clear that the systemic exemption established in 2010 does not provide a coherent long-term solution to the problem,” staff wrote. The proposed changes would “help the member improve its capacity to service its debt without necessarily requiring significant debt reduction.”

Accompanying the plans is a series of events supported by Montebourg and the Ministry for the Economy, Productivity, and Digital Technology called 'Les objets de la nouvelle France industrielle' (Products from the new industrial France). At these events, companies and entrepreneurs present a selection of new products to an audience to showcase innovative new developments by French companies and entrepreneurs.

At the ninth and most recent of the events in May, Orange, for example, presented a new version of its smart plug, called My Plug, which is scheduled for commercial launch on 6 June. My Plug 2 can alert customers of power outages via SMS and enables them to remotely control electrical devices like air conditioning or space heaters. It also allows them to monitor power consumption and set timers to switch devices on and off.

As evidence grows that U.S. colleges and universities have mishandled sexual assault cases—with a best estimate that one in five women going to college in the U.S. are sexually assaulted—a World Bank report (PDF) shows the crisis of violence against women is global. According to the report, survey evidence suggests about one in 10 women across the planet have suffered severe physical violence from their intimate partner—attempts at strangulation, burnings, threats of or actual violence using a weapon. That adds up to about 350 million people. A similar percentage reports sexual violence.

At the same time, there’s reason for hope. Despite the prevalence of gender-based crimes, particularly those committed by husbands and boyfriends, it appears the trend in violence toward women may be downward—thanks in part to greater levels of overall security and changing attitudes worldwide.

Someone had generously covered the toilet seat with urine in Nero’s today, and being of a charitable disposition he had also sprinkled his filtered coffee upon the floor.
I hate to be gender specific here, but I cannot imagine a woman capable either physically or morally of such a gross insult.
But the sprinkler was not a man, no it was a Lad. One of a growing cult led by luminaries such as Jeremy Clarkson, who will have no connection with anything in society unless it has wheels and an engine and goes brrm, or is a gun.
The Laddish strain in men has to be eliminated, not only to keep toilets clean, but also because it can lead to the torture and massacre of innocent people.
Hitler was the ultimate Lad.
Laddishness knows no art, it regards any untoward movement of the heart as gay, and can find an interest only in the mechanical and muscular.
Laddishness in a lad is OK, it is when the Lad is over 20 that it becomes a serious mental disability.

“I think India’s concern is highly over-stated. There is no Chinese influence in Bhutan as such,” said the person, who asked not to be named. “I think the threat of China as a major player is irrational on the part of India.”

Although it is not just in Bhutan that India feels Chinese influence in South Asia.

When it looks eastwards to Burma it sees China’s strong presence, when it gazes south towards Sri Lanka it sees a growing relationship that has led to China building ports and to the west it is all too aware of China close ties with Pakistan. Indeed, China has been increasing its interaction with countries across the region, including India.

Obama was pontificating about Iraq on BBC a last week, and got it completely wrong. So have all the chattering classes.
They chunter on about jihadists, Islamic extremists, terrorists and more.
It’s none of the above. It is both a religious and a civil war. These have always been notable for massacres and atrocities on a barbaric scale.
What we are seeing is a resumption of the Sunni – Shia conflict that has been going on spasmodically for centuries and the disintegration of the artificial states that were so casually and treacherously created by the British and French after WW1, breaking all the promises made to the Arabs on the defeat of the Ottoman Empire.

U.S. “gasoline consumption” – as measured by the U.S. Energy
Information Administration (EIA) itself – has plummeted by nearly 75%,
from its all-time peak in July of 1998. A near-75% collapse in U.S. gasoline
consumption has occurred in little more than 15 years

This conclusion becomes even more visible/obvious when
we view the gasoline data just from the start of the mythical “U.S. economic
recovery” to the present.

At the start of the “U.S. recovery”; U.S. gasoline
consumption was at a rate of 52 million gallons per day (already more than 20%
below the 1998 all-time peak). In the five years since the start of this
pretend-recovery; U.S. gasoline consumption has fallen all the way to 18
million gallons per day.

U.K. builders including Barratt Developments Plc slipped after Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne pledged to increase the Bank of England’s power to restrict borrowing. A gauge of European oil companies advanced the most on the Stoxx Europe 600 Index. Geberit (GEBN) AG gained 1.6 percent after Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its rating on the maker of toilets and bathroom piping.

The Stoxx 600 retreated 0.4 percent to 346.3 at 3:02 p.m. in London, heading for a weekly drop of 0.3 percent. employment benefits.“The developments in Iraq will continue to be on investors’ radars as a spike in oil prices always holds the potential to spook market participants,” said Mark

This government, just like the last one don't care about the checks that are in place. They just want statistics that look good, and for the visitors to "hopefully" have fat pockets full of cash.

New Labour started the rot when they they decreed that visa durations should be for the full length of the category applied for, rather than the amount of time the person said they want to visit for. e.g. Three weeks to see my friend would result in a six month visa being issued. Tony Bliar's next missive was that visas should be multi entry and not restricted to single entry! Followed my the Blair student initiative!

To put that into context: You have a valid ticket for three weeks, and demonstrate that you have enough to maintain and accommodate yourself for that period. Then once in the country change the return date on your ticket.

This is the kind of person who we need as COO of the US, a role a VP could play. Mitt Romney could play that role well too. It is an individual who can make things work, not just a politician. Anthony Foxx is the kind of person trying to make things better, isn't that the point of it all? The American Civil Service, differing from politicians, have made life immensely better and simpler for all of us in simple (again that word...) in the last 10 years. In business, all kinds of simplicity in registering and paying the bills for annual incorporation, searching out data such as patents and trademarks, EZ Pass, DMV activities online versus long lines, and the rest of it. Encourage Mr. Foxx! He is on the right track for all of us, regardless of our political persuasion. He is a role model for other civil servants--and understands his role is to serve, often by leading, as he has done on several fronts!

Europe’s populist parties caused an earthquake at the polls, allowing them to take around 30% of seats in the new European Parliament. France’s Front National won25% of the votes, Britain’s UK Independence Party scored 27.5%, the Danish People’s Party secured 26.6% and far-left Syriza in Greece took home 26.5%—all beating their countries’ governing parties and promising to fight for sweeping changes. Mainstream parties held their ground in some countries, including Italy, where Matteo Renzi’s Democrats won 40.8% of the vote and Germany, where Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats won 35.3%. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’s populist Party for Freedom failed to follow his allies in other countries, coming third with 13.2%